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Malazan Wiki:Dujek's Command Tent
This page is for us contributors to share information which might be of interest to us all, to arrange collaborations, basically issues which may go beyond the normal Talk page For conversations started here, please keep the responses on this page. Just edit in any comments under the relevant section starting it with an asterix, that way the conversation should be easy to read. Please add your name to the list of those attending on your first visit and please sign your posts :) Concluded topics will be moved to the bottom Currently attending *Jade Raven - Admin *Egwene of the Malazan Empire - Admin - edits in MonoBook *Aimzzz - Admin - edits in MonoBook *Andorion new - edits in Visual Editor and MonoBook *DaddinG - edits in MonoBook *ArchieVist *Johntocaelpiano Current Discussions Order in which information is displayed What are your views about the order in which book sections are shown on character pages etc.? Some options: ::*We list main series first then ICE novels ::*Use order of publication ::*Use the ultimate reading order (see Suggested reading order) ::*It depends on individual characters/locations etc In some cases the information may scream out for one or the other but it would be good to have some general consensus on how to organize the majority of pages. Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 13:06, August 20, 2015 (UTC) *My general preference is to read a character's entry like a biography with events described as they happened to them in their personal timeline. So I prefer the ultimate reading order. I'm sure there are specific cases where it would make more sense to present the information in another way, but these would have to be carefully maintained with the overall tone of the page in mind.--ArchieVist (talk) 13:45, August 20, 2015 (UTC) *I came to understand this issue intimately through the Temper page. His role in SE's books is really minor and the timeline really does not mesh. He is first described as a 'still formidable warrior' first, then comes the meaty part of his participation in NoK, which doesn't make much sense from the perspective of a new comer to the page (he/she is going to be spoilered, but that's besides the point). I would say we stick to the timeline. In this case NoK first, TBH next and then RoTCG. ~~~~Toctheyounger *For myself, my preference would also be to follow the ultimate reading order. The problem with that would be that newcomers to the series often read the main series first, then the ICE books thus it would be less spoiler friendly. Not sure how to get around that. Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 18:55, August 20, 2015 (UTC) *I was just about to say what Egwene said— I think it might be confusing to new readers if the books aren't in the classic order. New people wouldn't necessarily know which books are in the different series, which could make it harder to avoid spoilers. Personally I like the idea of having them in the basic MBotF, ICE, other stuff order. But, I'm fairly new & haven't gotten beyond MBotF yet (except for FoD). The rest of you have the big picture & seem to favor the Ultimate approach. I partly want to defer to experience, and the other part wants to minimize spoilers. Split decision here. aimzzz (talk) 20:07, August 20, 2015 (UTC) *Split opinion - maybe it depends where a character first appears and whether a character 'belongs' to SE or ICE? *It's not much of a split decision since the ultimate reading order is basically 90% a chronological order based on the story timeline and not by publishing date or author. That 10% difference involves putting the Night of Knives prequel and the Kharkanas prequel novels further back in the book order. I don't have any problem with putting prequels further down the timeline as long as the information attributed to those books is spoilery for the character. It wouldn't make much sense to have a character writeup that says he's dead, now he's alive, now he's dead to rigidly follow a book order. So put me down for ultimate reading order with exceptions based on individual character/location. I also think readers should take responsibility to avoid sections that are clearly marked as books they haven't read yet. --ArchieVist (talk) 14:12, August 25, 2015 (UTC) Information Most useful editing tips A list of things we learned the hard way.... *I used to copy and paste the | symbol. The day I spotted it, sat there on my keyboard right next (actually, left) to Z, well, I felt favoured by Oponn :) Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 21:36, July 30, 2015 (UTC) ** Actually it varies with the keyboard... were you using a laptop? I'm in the US & using a full-sized keyboard. On mine, the | is on the right side, just above the enter key ;) aimzzz (talk) 19:55, July 30, 2015 (UTC) *It saves time to always Preview entries, even when the changes are insignificant. It's way too easy to add, delete or misplace a character or symbol & derail the format. aimzzz (talk) 19:55, July 30, 2015 (UTC) *This section applies to e-book format. Compared to hard-copy, E-books have their pluses & minuses, but they're handy for adding or editing material. Some of these points are obvious but here they are, anyway ;) **E-book searches are great if there's something I want to add to a Wiki article, or I have an idea of where to find a missing reference. It only takes a couple of minutes to check through an e-book, or 2... or 3. The downside, of course, is coming up with a word/phrase giving a reasonable number of results. **My experience is limited to PDF files & Kindle Fire-- don't know about regular Kindle, Nook or other formats. ***Kindle Fire: I find something in a book that would be good in the Wiki. To get it from the Kindle to the PC, highlight it, click Share in the pop-up menu, then click Email. The highlighted part appears in an email which I send to myself. Now the info is there on the PC to add to Wiki at leisure. Very handy for adding quotes-- just cut & paste. (Be sure to note context, if needed & add chapter number for the ref.) ***PDF: With Acrobat Reader, there are a couple of approaches. It's easy to work with the text directly when editing Wiki. Or, to set something aside to work on later, go to upper right-hand corner & click Tools. After the sidebar opens, click Comments (at top, beside Tools). In Comments, under Annotations, are tools for Highlights & Notes. Anything you highlight will appear in the sidebar. Same for any notes you add. When you want the info, click the item in the side bar to see, edit, cut & paste, etc. *If you are wondering why a link you have made to an existing page isn't working... check if it contains an apostrophe - there are two types about and the two used need to be identical. Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 08:59, August 25, 2015 (UTC) Reddit, Facebook and other social media issues *Here is the link for the Reddit Malazan sub-forum. https://www.reddit.com/r/Malazan/ Andorion has now posted the link for the spoiler free image categories there. If you are passing that way, give it the thumbs up!Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 09:35, July 31, 2015 (UTC) *If anyone here is part of the Malazan Facebook group, maybe you could post something there as well.Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 09:35, July 31, 2015 (UTC) Ongoing projects Project: Extended Dramatis Personae We have begun a project to create extended DP's. The main DP as per books will go on the book main page and the DP link in the chapter infobox will lead to the extended DP. See Gardens of the Moon book page and Gardens of the Moon/Extended Dramatis Personae for a basic guideline. If you would like to take on one of the books, add it to the list. Any questions, leave a message on my talk page. Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 11:48, August 13, 2015 (UTC) *Assail - done ArchieVist *DG - work in progress Egwene *FD - work in progress ArchieVist *GotM - done Egwene *MoI - work in progress Andorion new *NK - done ArchieVist Project:Orphaned pages This is one I have been chipping away at over time but maybe you guys could help out :) We currently have a list of 72 pages called which are not linked from or transcluded into other pages. If we all take a look at it and just pick the odd one every now and then and add links to other pages as well as links back to that page, we could reduce that list a lot faster. Do bear in mind that the info on most of the special pages is only updated once a day or even once a week. Just click on the page and you should be able to see if it still needs doing. Just had another look at it... not actually as bad as I thought... a lot of the ones left are disambiguation pages so should be able to do the rest in short order. Most of the remaining ones are already linked to other pages but no pages link back to them. Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 19:41, August 22, 2015 (UTC) Project:Adopt a chapter For anyone interested in doing chapter summaries, here is the link to the 'Adopt a chapter' page which gives some info on how far the project has progressed and guidelines for the formatting of a chapter summary page. Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 19:41, August 22, 2015 (UTC) Topics closed Information: Recent Changes page problems and other technical issues 21st/22nd July - Solution posted The Recent Changes page seems to have defaulted to only showing 0 days. If you want to see more, you'll have to manually override that. There are one or two other changes, mostly not affecting operations too much. The one you may not immediately spot is that the Preview is now below the edit window rather than above. I am guessing that Wikia central are playing with the main software. Thanks aimzzz for bringing all this to my attention. Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 11:06, July 22, 2015 (UTC) *Is there a way to make this change permanent? Or do we have to keep clicking off of 0 days and 0 items each time we load the page? DaddinG (talk) 15:34, July 22, 2015 (UTC) *I have send an e-mail to the support team, hopefully they'll come back with something soon. It's a right proverbial pain in the proverbial!Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 13:12, July 23, 2015 (UTC) *'Update: I have had welcome news from Wiki support. Go to your preference and re-enter and re-save them and everything should be back to normal!!!' Suggestion: Book Cover gallery How about a gallery of book covers? Might be a nice addition & they're already available in Category: Book covers. A Book Cover gallery couldn't be a subgroup of the Fan Art gallery-- it would have to be separate. At the moment there are 74 pictures from various editions and countries. They could be grouped by book & the groups could be clumped by MBotF, Novels, Kharkanas, etc. A link could go on the home page in the Navigation box under the links for *Fan Art Images *Maps *Reading order (The one I like the Polish cover of Night of Knives. It's just so morbid!) aimzzz (talk) 11:04, August 1, 2015 (UTC) *As we have sorted the fan art images it is a logical step to take and as your wish is my command... Take a look... I have created sub-category 'book covers by title' and dumped a GotM cover in there as example. Same process as with images... add consecutive letters to each new category to maintain order of books (as seen in spoiler free images categories). One thing though... I have shortened GotM... not sure about it now... maybe long form would be better as it is easy to forget that not everyone frequents forums and is familiar with the abbreviations. What do you think. Is this what you had in mind? Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 20:00, August 1, 2015 (UTC) *Great! I think we should use the full book names though. New readers will assume book covers are safe to look at, but they might not know the abbreviations. The full book titles work well in the Spoiler-free gallery, even tho the category names are long. I'll start filling some in with full titles tonight. If we change the category names, it won't be hard to rename them in the image files. aimzzz (talk) 12:32, August 2, 2015 (UTC) *I've added categories based on full titles to ~half of the files. (Don't worry-- if they need to be changed, I'll fix them.) I'm going to PM the list of new sub-sub-category names to you so it won't take up the page space here. I don't think I can set them up... there's not hurry, tho. aimzzz (talk) 12:32, August 2, 2015 (UTC) *Looks good! I have changed example to full name. One could say that you have already created the subcategories, now you just need to allocated them, so to speak. Go to any of the covers you have categorized and at at the bottom of the page you will see the category which you have added, appearing in red, indicating a non-existing link. So as with page links, click on that and a new window will appear. Scroll down to the editing box and add the main category to which it belongs. In this case [ covers by title|? ] Instead of the question mark, add a letter of the alphabet which will give the category its place in the list. So A for GotM, B for DG, C for MoI and so forth. Give it a go :) *Done (but open for additions & suggestions, of course). Category:Book covers by title. BTW, there's at least one book cover for each book in all of the Malazan series. (FWIW, had to look it up... the word series is both singular & plural) aimzzz (talk) 12:32, August 2, 2015 (UTC) Guidelines for pictures that are not fan art Some of the book cover pics are tiny (ex. GotM 1 & GotM 2. Also, while there are 34 covers for GotM, most books only have one. I was thinking of googling for more covers (or bigger versions), but I'm not sure about the rules for use. Can someone plz do a concise summary of what we can use? aimzzz (talk) 21:02, August 2, 2015 (UTC) *As far as I know, the book cover images are in the public domain when you use them for advertising said book. Gardens of the Moon has so many images because it has appeared in many languages. The trouble with many of the foreign language editions is that they are far from completed. Yes, spare a thought for all those Malazan fans out there who are still waiting for the next installments! I uploaded some, which you have now categorized, which I had not yet added to the relevant book pages. It wasn't always possible to get the large image size to load. I am not the most technical in that department, so maybe there is a way... Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 08:31, August 4, 2015 (UTC) *I think if somebody wants a super-large image, he/she can google for it. Most of the pictures are large enough, but there are some that are too small to see very well. I'd like to look for versions that are medium to large (large being maybe 900-1000px). I don't see matching GotM's 34 pics for all books-- was thinking it would be nice to have at least 3 to 5 for each, if available & focus on finding variety, when possible, instead of the same pic with titles in different languages. It would be a project done as time permits, a few here & a few there. Art Gallery to Sidebar - done While messing around with the art I noticed that in Monobook format if an image is opened there is no link back to the art gallery except the back button. Would it be possible to add an Art Gallery link in the sidebar, like under the Navigation heading? {Andorion new) *I am not sure what the rules are with regards to adding stuff to the sidebar. I'll check it out with Jade Raven.Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 08:31, August 4, 2015 (UTC) *Well, having had a look at things myself, I could not find any restrictions on adding another link so have added 'Gallery' to sidebar :) Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 15:51, August 8, 2015 (UTC) *Good idea! Very handy. aimzzz (talk) 23:50, August 9, 2015 (UTC) Home page in Wikia skin I was playing with editing & saw the Home pg in the Wikia skin for the 1st time in ages. It was almost like being a noob. I have a couple of font color suggestions— just MHO's. Here's a screenshot for ref so there's no need to change to Wikia. *The reddish-brown bar at the top, to the right of the helm: There's very little contrast between the black font & the dark color of the bar. I can't read the links in that bar without getting really close to the screen. They would show up better if the font was either the parchment color of the page's background, or white. **The content of that bar is set by Wikia and I have no idea, if it is possible, how to change the font colour.Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 15:51, August 8, 2015 (UTC) ***Not nice of them ;) When I first found the Wiki, it was irritating because I couldn't read it. It was great when you told me about Monobook! aimzzz (talk) 22:22, August 8, 2015 (UTC) *The bold section in red for new users: To me, the red font is jarring and, er, non-aesthetic. Since the info is in bold, I think it would show up just as well if the font was the reddish brown of the header bars. If red is desired, the reddish-brown could be lightened to a color closer to red, but in a shade that coordinates better with the page design. Black would work too. The section would still stand out because of the bold type. **Have changed the font colour of the Newbie section to grey. What's your verdict on that version? Don't think we can use brown as that is the colour the links come up as.Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 15:41, August 8, 2015 (UTC) ***Looks a lot better. I wasn't sure if it would be sacrificing noticeability to looks. Hope I didn't sound rude... just wanted to make suggestions :) aimzzz (talk) 22:22, August 8, 2015 (UTC) Project: Spoiler free image galleries I am planning to introduce a(some) spoiler free image gallerie(s). Should I create one for each book or just a total newbie one or something inbetween? Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 11:06, July 22, 2015 (UTC) *I think the book by book idea is a good one and it should effectively deal with the Spoilers issue. The categorization will be tedious though. Want some help? (Andorion new) *Do I want some help? Is Whiskeyjack a Bridgeburner? ;) Thank you, Andorion, that would be great :) I have created a new subcategory in Fan art: [ art spoiler free ] into which we dump the spoiler free subcategories (which I am about to create. I have already added the Fiddler images in a [ art spoiler free new reader|A ] section. However, there is one which has in its description that it its the artist's idea of a Fiddler in the later books... do we add it as well? Anyway, once I have created those sub-categories (I am adding letters at the end so they appear in book order), it would be great if you could take a look at each image and decide where it should go. Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 09:37, July 23, 2015 (UTC) *OK I saw the categories. Those should do nicely. One issue though. I am probably going to make a Word or Excel sheet or something to handle the image classification and I think it would be really handy if I could email it to you. Can I have an email ID? You can PM it to me in the ME forum.(Andorion new) *As for Fiddler I can see how that might be a problem. How about we put the first Image, Fid2 in GotM as its totally non spoilery and the rest in the Bonehunters? (Andorion new) *There are still some categories missing but I have not been able to identify one which applies specifically to TtH as well as the later Esslemont novels. Not to be awkward, but as a rule, I don't give out my e-mail addy. You'll probably be able to send something directly via PM on ME anyway. About the Fiddler images, they are all ok bar the one which I have left out. You probably have seen it already... I have specified that the 'new reader' category will contain images of characters but nothing relating to events in GotM.Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 17:51, July 23, 2015 (UTC) *If I understand correctly I can attach images while posting in athread but I can't find the attachment tool for a PM. Should I create a new thread for this and attach the file there? I am not done yet but I am into the Fs and I wanted you to have a look.(Andorion new) *As for the categorisation, thats tricky as I am finding out. But yeah there are TtH centric images like Dorsan Ryl plus one of Rake.(Andorion new) *Actually, a thread about this is not a bad idea for other reasons... we may need some input from a broader audience on some of those images. Also, we do have that very underused Wiki board on the forum... if you could start a thread there, might get others interested in what we are doing. Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 17:51, July 23, 2015 (UTC) *'Update: Images are now categorized (thank you very much, Andorion) and if anyone has a moment, take a look and check if you agree with the given spoiler certification!' 'Security alert Weekend 9/10th of August 2015' Hopefully you will all have read the official alert message, but if not... there was a security breach at the weekend and some Wikis were hacked into. As far as I can see, we are ok however, Wikia central recommend that we all change our passwords. In the meantime, if you do see anything which needs urgent admin attention, please leave a message on my talk page as well as that of Jade Raven. Thanks Egwene of the Malazan Empire (talk) 06:55, August 11, 2015 (UTC) Category:Community